[Footnote 75: For a vivid description of these dances see Chabrier's _Lettres à Nanette_, Paris, 1910.]
The Suite, by reason of its freedom in combining different rhythms and moods, has appealed vividly to modern composers; and the literature of our times contains a number of Suites which should be known to the music-lover. In these modern Suites no attempt is made to conform to the old conventional grouping of dances. The movements are in different keys, are often based on rhythms of an exotic or ultra-nationalistic type--as in Tchaikowsky and Dvo[vr]ák, or may employ any material suggested by the fantastic imagination of the composer--as in Debussy and Ravel. Among the most attractive modern Suites may be cited: The _Peer Gynt_ (put together from incidental music to Ibsen's play) and the _Holberg_ by Grieg; the two _L'Arlésienne Suites_ by Bizet (written to illustrate Daudet's romantic story)--the first, with its dainty Minuet and brilliant Carillons (Peal of bells); Dvo[vr]ák's _Suite for Small Orchestra_, op. 39, with its sprightly Polka and impassioned Furiant; Tchaikowsky's five Orchestral Suites of which the best known are the _Casse-Noisette_ with its exotic rhythms and novel orchestral effects, the _Mozartiana_ and the third which closes with a brilliant Polonaise; Brahms's _Serenades_ for orchestra; Charpentier's _Impressions of Italy_ in which there is an effective use of Italian rhythm and color; MacDowell's _Indian Suite_, with several of the themes based on native tunes; the fascinating orchestral Suite _Adventures in a Perambulator_ by John Alden Carpenter; Arthur Whiting's _Suite Moderne_ for pianoforte; _Stevensoniana_, (based on stanzas from Stevenson's _Child's Garden of Verses_) an orchestral Suite in four movements by Edward B. Hill; Debussy's _Suite Bergamasque_ in which is found the oft-played _Clair de Lune_; Ravel's[76] _Mother Goose_, a delightful work--and by the same composer the _Daphnis and Chloe_ Suite, the material drawn from an opera of the same name. In modern literature easily the most celebrated and brilliant example of this type is the _Scheherazade Suite_ (based on the Arabian Nights) for full orchestra by Rimsky-Korsakoff. This work in the genuine poetic quality of its themes, in its marvellous descriptive power and in the boldness of its orchestral effect remains unsurpassed.